Member State Representatives,
Distinguished participants, colleagues and friends,
Good morning to you all. Welcome to this Consultation on regional priorities and operational planning for the 2026–2027 Programme Budget—the very first under GPW14, our Fourteenth General Programme of Work.
GPW14 renews our promise to accelerate progress on the recalibrated Triple Billion Targets and the health-related SDGs, while ensuring that WHO becomes more focused, effective, and accountable to those we serve.
As we meet here today, we are at a global inflection point that presents both challenges and opportunities.
Our challenge, and that of all our partners in global public health, is a tightening funding landscape. The threats to our health continue to rise, while the budgets available to us fall. Quite simply, it leaves us having to do more with less. This is the challenge of this moment, and we must rise to it.
Yet this moment also presents an opportunity - to become leaner, sharper, more agile and more focused. To this end, we are restructuring WHO at every level – globally, regionally and at the country level. Our budgets remain overwhelmingly allocated to the country level, reflecting our commitment to deliver tangible and measurable on-ground impact.
I thank you, our Member States, for your extremely constructive and productive engagement during our Regional Committee meeting in Colombo last month. You adopted the resolution for Programme Budget 2026-27, and now our focus turns to action and implementation.
Earlier this year, at the Seventy-eighth World Health Assembly, Member States approved a global programme budget of US$ 4.2 billion for 2026-2027. This is a leaner budget than before, reflecting the funding landscape we find ourselves in.
The approved budget for our region was US$445 million, comprising:
the Base Budget of US$ 417.2 million; and
US$ 27.7 million for the non-Base segments, including Emergency Operations and Appeals, Special Programmes and Polio.
With Indonesia’s reassignment to the Western Pacific Region, US$33.4 million from the Base Budget will be moved from SEARO to WPRO. Our revised Base Budget for South-East Asia will therefore be US$ 383.8 million for 2026-27.
Despite the reduced regional budget, as I mentioned earlier, we have progressively increased the share of country-level budgets.
In 2018–2019, the country-level budget allocation was 65%, while in the upcoming Programme Budget it is 75%.
As you can see, we are ‘walking the talk’ when it comes to strengthening country support.
This alignment of resources with priorities will accelerate our progress toward universal health coverage, emergency preparedness, and healthier populations.
Over the past few years, WHO’s planning processes have evolved significantly.
We now plan with a stronger results framework, based on evidence, focusing on measurable outputs and outcomes, and with country prioritization at the centre.
We have introduced new tools: technical products, Country Support Plans, Output Delivery Teams, Scorecards, and data-driven planning. These are all designed to ensure our work at WHO synchronizes with your national priorities and on-ground realities.
This consultation starting today is the latest in a sequence of engagements we have had till now. A series of strategic dialogues were conducted across the region, first from July to October last year, and then revalidated earlier this year in March.
Those country consultations have identified national priorities and areas of collaboration, leaving us with a clear understanding of how we can best work together to achieve our goals.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Our South-East Asia Region has always been a leader in results-based planning, and in promoting collaboration that aligns global, regional, and country efforts.
Results-based management guides our planning, by focusing on results and not just activities. It defines clear outcomes; tracks progress and ensures accountability through evidence-based decisions.
Instead of simply reporting actions, this approach encourages us to show impact. It makes our work more transparent and allows us to better understand how to maximize results. In short, it leads to better outcomes for our people.
We must build on this by ensuring that every plan we finalize in this consultation is strategic, realistic, and evidence-based—and truly responds to the needs of our people.
Your active engagement at this meeting will help us maximize country-level impact. It will help us move closer to our health-related SDGs—and ultimately towards the healthier, more equitable and sustainable region that we all want.
On that note, I thank you for your commitment to the cause of public health and wish you all productive deliberations and a very pleasant stay in New Delhi.
Thank you.